IT was billed as the biggest day in the House of Lords for years. Peers were going to tear through the government's health reforms like hungry jackals falling upon the rotten corpse of a wildebeest. So, naturally, the place was as quiet as a summer picnic. You could almost hear the bees, the gentle gurgle of a stream, the only loud noise the pop of another cork. This is why some of us like the Lords so much. They almost never get excited.

They can be baffling, though. On Monday they had a brief debate on "ping-pong during the dinner break". It sounded like a youth club. There might be table football during the lunch break, and bar billiards during elevenses, too. In fact it has nothing to do with table tennis, but is the process by which the Lords and Commons go to and fro, seeking last-minute agreement on amendments, in this case to the welfare bill.

Labour pretended to be outraged that this important bill would go through its final stages while most peers were masticating their steak and kidney pud. Lord Strathclyde said he was "astonished and disappointed" by the complaint. Why, when Labour were in government, they were always having ping-pong in the dinner break!

He quoted a "tweet", a word that emerged from his mouth like a bad oyster. The tweet had come from someone calling himself "Lord Phil of Brum", who turns out to be Lord Hunt, the deputy Labour leader. You realise the peers are changing. Lord Salisbury never felt the need to get down wiv da kidz. I looked up at the public gallery, which was full of very confused visitors. Finally they reached the health bill, and specifically whether doctors should admit to patients that they had made a mistake. Lord Walton used to be on the General Medical Council. An earlier head of the council, Lord Cohen, had told him: "Never apologise to a patient!"

Those were the days. Sir Lancelot Spratt didn't go round saying: "Please forgive me!" to some pathetic wretch merely because he'd sawn the wrong leg off. As traditional physicians knew, death meant never having to say you're sorry.

Milquetoast doctors now follow the mimsy advice of Lady Hollins, who told us: "An honest and prompt apology can do so much, going forward."

But the government opposed the amendment. The minister, Lord Howe (no relation to Geoffrey), has the mild and ingratiating manner of a provincial draper explaining why Lady Granchester's order for velour has not yet arrived. He begged for the amendment to be withdrawn. Lady Masham, who had moved it, thanked everyone who had spoken. She apologised for not thanking them the last time, because she had been thanking the minister, and had forgotten to thank them. And of course she withdrew her amendment. This is the House of Lords, after all.

They moved on to conflicts of interest. Lord Howe spoke about "a cumbersome exemption process", "policing transactional behaviour" and "a quality-assessing onus of transparency".

The murmuring of bees and the gentle trickle of water merged with an almost inaudible snoring.